¹ events that have affected relations between the U. S. and the Soviet Union.

“However, the decision by the Union leadership was made necessary by the demands of the workers.

”It is their will to refuse to work Russian vessels and Russian cargoes under present conditions in the world.

“People are upset and they refuse to continue the business as usual policy as long as the Russians insist on being international bully boys. It is a decision in which the Union leadership concurs.” App. lOa-lla.

² Several lawsuits have resulted from the ILA's Russian boycott. See Baldovin v. International Longshoremen's Assn., 626 F. 2d 445 (CA5 1980); New Orleans Steamship Assn. v. General Longshore Workers, ILA, 626 F. 2d 455 (CA5 1980), cert, granted sub nam., Jacksonville Bulk Terminals, Inc., v. Longshoremen's—U. S—(1981).

³ Article 40 of the collective bargaining agreement contains a broad nostrike, no lockout clause:

“The Employers agree that there shall be no lockout or work stoppage by the Employers, and the Union agrees that there shall be no strike or work stoppage by the employees. The right of the employees not to cross a bona-fide picket line is recognized by the Employers.” App. 29a.

⁴ Section 8(b)(4) provides in relevant part:

“It shall be an unfair labor practice for a labor organization or its agents—

(4)(i) to engage in, or to induce or encourage any individual employed by any person engaged in commerce or in an industry affecting commerce to engage in, a strike or a refusal in the course of his employment to use, manufacture, process, transport, or otherwise handle or work on any goods, articles, materials, or commodities or to perform any services; or (ii) to threaten, coerce, or restrain any person engaged in commerce or in an industry affecting commerce, where in either case an object thereof is—

(B) forcing or requiring any person to cease using, selling, handling, transporting, or otherwise dealing in the products of any other producer, processor, or manufacturer, or to cease doing business with any other person...”

⁵ Section 303 of the Labor-Management Relations Act, 29 U. S. C. § 187, provides in pertinent part:

“(a) It shall be unlawful, for the purpose of this section only, in an industry or activity affecting commerce, for any labor organization to engage in any activity or conduct denned as an unfair labor practice in section 158(b)(4) of this title.

“(b) Whoever shall be injured in his business or property by reason [of] any violation of subsection (a) of this section may sue therefor in any district court of the United States . . . and shall recover the damages by him sustained and the cost of the suit.”

⁶ Allied also alleged that the ILA boycott violated the Sherman Act, 15 U. S. C. § 1, and amounted to a tortious interference with Allied's business relationships in violation of admiralty law. The Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court's dismissal of these claims, and they are not before us now. See Allied Int'l, Inc. v. International Longshoremen's Ass'n., 640 F. 2d 1368, 1379-1382 (CA1 1981).

⁷ On March 26, 1980, the regional director issued an unfair labor practice complaint against the ILA and filed a request for a preliminary injunction in federal district court. Finding that the ILA boycott was a political dispute outside the scope of § 8(b)(4)(B), the District Court denied the request for preliminary injunction. Walsh v. International Longshoremen's Assn., 488 F. Supp. 524 (D. Mass. 1980). The Court of Appeals affirmed on a different theory. Walsh v. International Longshoremen's Assn., 630 F. 2d 864 (CA1 1980). It found that the denial of the Board's earlier request for injunctive relief against the boycott in Baldovin v. International Longshoremen's Assn., Civil No. 80-259 (S.D. Tex. Feb. 15, 1980), affd, b26 F. 2d 445 (CA5 1980), had preclusive effect.

⁸ Allied's suit for damages was consolidated with Walsh v. International Longshoremen's Assn., supra note 7. In dismissing Allied's claim for damages, the District Court relied upon its characterization of the ILA boycott in Walsh as the law of the case. 492 F. Supp., at 336.

⁹ “The ILA had not induced a strike against Allied, Waterman, or Clark; nor does it seek to pressure those employers not to deal with one another. No pickot lines have been established and no other employees have been prevented from work. . . . This is a primary boycott of Russian goods, with incidental effects upon those employers who deal in such goods. As such, the actions of the respondents may not be prohibited by §§ 8(b)(4)(i), (ii)(b).” Allied International Inc. v. International Longshoremen's Assn., 4S2 F. Supp. 334, 336 (D. Mass. 1980), quoting Walsh v. International Longshoremen's Assn., supra, at 530-531.

¹⁰ In so holding, the court differed with the conclusion reached by the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Baldovin v. International Longshoremen's Assn., 626 F. 2d 445 (CA5 1980).

¹¹ The NLRB reached the same conclusion in its decision upon the regional director's complaint against the ILA. See note 7 supra. The Board held that the ILA's refusal to unload Allied's shipments was “in commerce” and amounted to a secondary boycott in violation of § 8(b)(4)(i) and (ii)(B). The Board issued a cease and desist order to Local 799 requiring it to unload Allied's shipments. International Longshoremen's Assn., AFLCIO (Allied International, Inc.), 2S 1 N.L.R.B. No. 151 (Aug. 28, 1981). Petitions to review the Board's Decision and Order were filed by both the ILA and Allied and are now pending before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

¹² The terms “commerce” and “affecting commerce” are defined in §§ 2(6) and (7), 29 U. S. C. §§ 152(6) and (7), as amended by the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, as follows:

“(6) The term 'commerce' means trade, traffic, commerce, transportation, or communication among the several States, or between the District of Columbia or any Territory of the United States and any State or other Territory, or between any foreign country and any State, Territory, or the District of Columbia, or within the District of Columbia or any Territory, or between points in the same State but through any other State or any Territory or the District of Columbia or any foreign country.

“(7) The term 'affecting commerce' means in commerce, or burdening or obstructing commerce or the free flow of commerce, or having led or tending to lead to a labor dispute burdening or obstructing commerce or the free flow of commerce.”

¹³ “At first blush, it might appear too plain for discussion that the ILA's refusal to unload Allied's goods affects both commerce and a person engaged in commerce. Allied, Waterman and Clark are American companies and the ILA is an American union. All engage regularly in business affecting the transportation of goods among the several states. Indeed, the instant dispute arose when the ILA's actions allegedly impeded Allied's ability to move its wood products from Boston to other ports along the East coast, and Allied contends that the ILA continues to frustrate its ability to transport its goods into this country.” Allied Int'l, Inc. v. International Longshoremen's Assn., 640 F. 2d 1368, 1371 (CA1 1981).

¹⁴ Benz v. Compania Naviera Hidalgo, 353 U. S. 138 (1957); McCulloch v. Sociedad Nacional, 372 U. S. 10 (1963); Incres S. S. Co. v. Maritime Workers, 372 U. S. 24 (1963); Longshoremen v. Ariadne Co., 397 U. S. 195 (1970); Windward Shipping, Ltd. v. American Radio Assn., 415 U. S. 104 (1974); American Radio Assn. v. Mobile S. S. Assn., 419 U. S. 215 (1974).

¹⁵ lucres S. S. Co. v. Maritime Workers, supra, at 27. The Court noted in a later case that the “term 'in commerce,' as used in the LMRA, is obviously not self-defining.” Windward Shipping, Ltd. v. American Radio Assn., supra, at 112.

¹⁶ The Court adhered to a similar approach in the companion cases of McCulloch v. Sociedad Nacional, supra, and Incres Steamship Co. v. Maritime Workers, supra. In McCulloch the Court held that the National Labor Relations Board did not have jurisdiction to determine the union representation of a foreign crew aboard a foreign vessel. In Incres the Court held that organizational picketing by an American union seeking to organize foreign seamen on a foreign-flag vessel also was outside the Board's jurisdiction.

¹⁷ Jurisdiction in the NLRA over the ILA boycott is consistent with two further considerations. The ILA boycott is a national boycott affecting ports throughout the United States. Were the effects of this boycott not “in commerce,” complaining parties such as Allied could seek relief in state courts. The possibility of conflicting decisions by a multitude of state courts frustrates one of the basic purposes of the NLRA—to establish a uniform national labor policy. Moreover, the ILA boycott commenced just a few days after President Carter ordered a boycott on exports to the Soviet Union. It differed in significant respects from that embargo. See Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Vol. 16, No. 2, Monday, January 14, 1980, at 42. On February 16, 1980, the Legal Adviser of the State Department informed the Attorney General “that the Department of State believes that the action of the ILA conflicts with significant U. S. foreign policy interests.” Supplemental Memorandum in Support of Motion for Preliminary Injunction, Attachment A. Federal jurisdiction is supported by the national interests affected by the ILA boycott. See International Longshoremen's Assn, AFL-CIO (Allied International, Inc.), 257 N.L.R.B. No. 151, at 9 (Aug. 28, 1981) (“this case presents the novel situation of a labor union establishing a national boycott contravening a Federal policy”).

¹⁸ In Carpenters v. NLRB, 357 U. S. 93, 98 (1958), the Court described the elements of a section 8(b)(4) violation as threefold: “Employees must be induced; they must be induced to engage in a strike or concerted refusal; an object must be to force or require their employer or another person to cease doing business with a third person.”

¹⁹ “We think it plain that the ILA was not engaged in primary activity and that the boycott against Allied's goods was 'calculated to satisfy union objectives elsewhere.' The ILA concedes it has no dispute with Clark, Waterman or Allied, and there is no suggestion that it seeks to affect the labor relations of any of these employers. It is also plain that these 'unoffending employers' have been embroiled in a 'controversy not their own' as a result of union action which 'reasonably could be expected' to 'threaten a neutral party with ruin or substantial loss.'” 640 F. 2d, at 1377.

²⁰ Justice Frankfurter explained that Congress “aimed to restrict the area of industrial conflict insofar as this could be achieved by prohibiting the most obvious, widespread, and as Congress evidently judged, dangerous practice of unions to widen that conflict: the coercion of neutral employers.” Carpenters v. NLRB, 357 U. S. 93, 100 (1958).

The Court frequently has described the purpose of the secondary boycott provisions as twofold: the preservation of the right of labor organizations to place pressure on employers with whom there is a primary dispute as well as the protection of neutral employers and employees from the labor disputes of others. See, e. g., NLRB v. Denver Building Trades Council, 341 U. S. 675, 692 (1951) (noting the “dual congressional objectives of preserving the right of labor organizations to bring pressure to bear on offending employers in primary labor disputes and of shielding unoffending employers and others from pressures in controversies not their own.”). In the circumstances of this case, however, only the second of these objectives has any relevance. The ILA had no dispute with Allied, Waterman or Clark. See note 19, supra.

²¹ “It is not necessary to find that the sole object” of the boycott was the disruption of business of neutral parties. NLRB v. Denver Building Council, supra, at 689.

²² As both the Court of Appeals and the NLRB noted, such a result is particularly appropriate in this case since it is not even arguable that Allied was feeling the secondary effects of a primary dispute protected by the Act. See 640 F. 2d 1376, n. 6; 257 N.L.R.B. No. 151, at 34. We are not faced in this case with the often difficult task of characterizing union activity as either protected primary or prohibited secondary activity. See Electrical Workers v. NLRB, 366 U. S. 667, 673-674 (1961).

²³ Responding to the claim that there were “good secondary boycotts and bad secondary boycotts” Senator Taft stated: “Our committee heard evidence for weeks and never succeeded in having anyone tell us any difference between different kinds of secondary boycotts. So we have so broadened the provision dealing with secondary boycotts as to make them an unfair labor practice.” 93 Cong. Rec. 4323 (1947).

In Labor Board v. Fruit Packers, 377 U. S. 58, 63 (1964), the Court concluded that Congress did not intend to bar “all peaceful consumer picketing at secondary sites.” (emphasis added).

²⁴ Cf. Journeymen v. Local JJi, U. S. (19H1) (rejecting view that § 301(a) of the LMRA applies only to disputes between local and parent unions concerning labor-management relations).

²⁵ In Electrical Workers v. NLRB, 341 U. S. 694, 705 (1951) the Court held that “[t]he prohibition of inducement or encouragement of secondary pressure by § 8(b)(4)(A) carries no unconstitutional abridgement of free speech. The inducement or encouragement in the instant case took the form of picketing . . . [W]e, recently have recognized the constitutional right of states to proscribe picketing in furtherance of comparably unlawful objectives. There is no reason why Congress may not do likewise.” (footnote omitted).

²⁶ Cf. NLRB v. Retail Stores, 447 U. S. 607, 619 (1980) (“The statutory ban in this case affects only that aspect of the union's efforts to communicate its views that calls for an automatic response to a signal, rather than a reasoned response to an idea.”) (STEVENS, J. concurring); United States v. O'Brien, 391 U. S. 367, 376 (1968) (“This Court has held that when 'speech' and 'nonspeech' elements are combined in the same course of conduct, a sufficiently important governmental interest in regulating the nonspeech element can justify incidental limitations on First Amendment freedoms.”).